What is life?
A cocktail of memories, some sweet, some bitter, some dreams that were realized and some that sadly remained unfulfilled.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

A LOVE STORY

She was not stunningly beautiful, just pretty in a simple charming sort of way. I see her everyday on the train. She boards the train at the Thirumailai station and alights at the Indra Nagar station; I continue on my journey and get down at the Thiruvanmiyur station. I am a programmer, I write code, and I work for a small outsourcing firm that pays me a decent salary.

It has been six months since I landed in Chennai and started working on my current job. The MRTS or “Flying Train” as it is popularly called is efficient and saves a lot of time when I commute to office from my shared apartment in Triplicane. My roommate woks for an FM radio station as a radio jockey; he is a cousin of my classmate at my college.

I noticed her for the first time a couple of months back, and ever since I wait with bated breath each time the train approaches the Thirumailai station. She is always dressed in salwar-kameez, no saree or jeans and T-shirt stuff. She carries a black handbag, it probably contains her lunch. She has golden eyes and wears minimal make up. In all my years in school and college I had never been so attracted by a face or seen someone who could carry oneself with so much grace.

I would often wonder “If I speak to her…” A chain of thoughts follows—Perhaps we would become friends, maybe we would go shopping or go to a movie, perhaps she would invite me to her house and introduce me to her parents, and then one thing would lead to another; and one fine day I would propose marriage, and she would say—“Yes.” When I spoke on this topic to my roommate, he said—“Matchaan family planning ellam super; do you know her name?”

Damn, curse the fellow to bring me back to reality. I thought—“I have been seeing her on the train everyday for close to three months now, and all I know is that she boards the train at Thirumailai and alights at Indra Nagar, has golden eyes, and wears Salwar-kameez with a preference for shades of black, lavender, and blue.”

I thought—“Dude, time to find out more about the girl with the golden eyes.” I got the opportunity pretty soon, July 4, being American Independence Day and falling on a Friday our clients in the U.S. gave us an extended weekend holiday.

So here I am on the train Friday morning dressed in a grey T-shirt and denims. I feel nervous as the train reaches Thirumailai, as usual she boards the train. She is wearing a blue salwar-kameez with floral prints. I try not staring at her and focus my concentration on the newspaper in my hands. The paper loses the battle as I catch stolen glances of her.

The train reaches Indra Nagar—she alights and I follow her; I maintain my distance, careful not to alert her of my presence. She walks with measured steps, with the fluidity of a ballet dancer or a gymnast. She walks for about fifteen minutes and enters a huge mansion. The building is reminiscent of the British era and is huge. I look at the arched board at the entrance. It reads—“Ashraya-School for the Blind.”

For a moment I stop and admire the girl’s courage and love. In an age where everyone wants to join an IT firm, here was one girl who was leading a life with a definite purpose.

I returned to my room and when my roommate questioned me I realized that I still did not know the girl’s name. My roommate joked—“Matchaan if this goes on she is going to get married to someone else, speak to her man.” I smiled stupidly and took out a novel and began reading it.

Monday morning was cold and chilly, it had rained heavily all of Sunday evening and night and the roads were wet and slippery. I went to the railway station, the station was more crowded than usual, someone said that a train had got cancelled—that explained the crowd. The train pulled into the station it was crowded; I somehow found a place to stand near the exit. I held on to the door as the train proceeded towards Thirumailai.

“Where was she? Had she taken leave because of the inclement weather?” The train was about to leave when she bounded up the stairways and ran on to the platform the train started and she made a dash for it as the train accelerated, she too increased her speed, I held out my hand and said-“Trust me, hold my hand, I will pull you in.” She looked at me for a moment and offered her hand; I pulled her in and she smiled at me sheepishly-“Thanks a lot, I would have missed the train if you had not helped me.” She held out her hand once again and said—“Hi, I am Diya, I am a teacher.” I shook hands with her—“Hi Diya, I am Mark I am a programmer. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

She got down at Indra Nagar but by then we had exchanged our mobile phone numbers and then it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I began to visit her at her school on weekends and interacted with the children there. I helped set up a computer laboratory in their school and helped some of the children learn computers through JAWS a software for the visually impaired.

Slowly we began to like each other; we shared a common love for Illayaraja and Beethoven, Jayakanthan and Dostoevsky, and Clint Eastwood and Julia Roberts. The list of likes and dislikes was so similar that it made me believe in the fact—“Someone somewhere is made just for you.”

I met her parents and then spoke to my parents. Things fell into place; our engagement was announced in the church, and we got married.

We are living happily she is still working in the school, and I have been promoted to the post of Project Manager.

Well that is the story of our love story and we continue to love and live together happily.